Letter: Offshore drilling

The U.S. House of Representatives recently said “thumbs up” to Big Oil and authorized a law permitting new offshore oil drilling for California. Offshore oil drilling brings environmental risk at each stage of the process. In exploration, sonar cannons blast coastal waters with up to 260 decibels, adding to the existing damage and unmeasured effects of ocean noise pollution.

In drilling and infrastructure, pipelines and drilling rigs assure California waters will appear and function like factories with a citizen-subsidized carbon footprint.

But the damage doesn’t stop there! The “Too Big to Fail” international oil companies will assure the continuation of an escalating global warming crisis. People, we don’t need massive oil spills to know that oil extraction is bad for the ocean. But even with oil company executives assuring consumers of reduced risk, eventually the odds of an oil spill catch up to them (and us).